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Some help is on the way for Bexar County high school students and employers in need of a better trained workforce. High drop-out rates have plagued our community for decades. Even students who are fortunate to earn a high school diploma often have a difficult time after graduation due to their lack of college readiness.

Educators say students in our schools are learning the required content but are not developing the higher order thinking skills necessary to succeed on the state's more strenuous standardized tests and in higher education.

Armed with a $272,000 grant from the Ewing Halsell Foundation, Generation TX San Antonio, a nonprofit organization focused on education, is working with 11 local school districts to increase classroom rigor and help students succeed. The group is building a library of teaching resources that will eventually include 700 lesson plans that teachers throughout the community can access for use in their classrooms. The goal is to eventually offer universal access to teachers from any district.

The lesson plans have been drafted by classroom teachers highly regarded in their fields and vetted by curriculum experts who are consulting on the project. Generation TX San Antonio's SA Ready program provides an invaluable resource for frazzled teachers who each year are being asked to do more with less resources and for cash-strapped school districts struggling to absorb state funding cuts.

It is estimated that on average only 83 out of every 100 San Antonio ninth-graders will make it across the high school graduation stage. Data compiled by Generation TX San Antonio indicates only 47 of those 83 graduates will enroll in a certificate or degree program. Only 18 of them will earn a certificate or degree within six years of high school graduation.

For too long, the focus has been on getting students to graduate high school and providing them easy access to higher education. That is no longer enough. We are failing them if we don't equip them with the tools to succeed.

Large numbers of students are finding themselves in remedial courses, dropping out and failing to achieve their academic goals. That is simply unacceptable and the public education system must work to fix those deficiencies.

The state has taken steps toward raising the bar for high school graduation by mandating that students take four English, four science, four math and four social studies courses to graduate. But the rigor of that curriculum is pretty much in the hands of the individual school districts.

As we all are only too well aware, there is a disparity in funding among school districts across the state and the resources available to students. Generation TX San Antonio's SA Ready program will help level the playing field when it comes to curriculum and the students' experience in the classroom.